Sto­sur in come­back shocker

SA­MAN­THA Sto­sur’s home strug­gles have reached new lows with the for­mer grand slam cham­pion suf­fer­ing her worst loss in Aus­tralia.

Mak­ing her Fed Cup sin­gles de­but, world No. 210 Les­ley Kerkhove hum­bled Sto­sur 7-5 7-6 (7-1) yes­ter­day to earn the Nether­lands a shock early lead in their World Group play­off in Wol­lon­gong.

Ash­leigh Barty put the hosts back on level terms with a 6-0 6-2 dis­patch of Quirine Le­moine, but team cap­tain Ali­cia Mo­lik said Sto­sur would be rested for to­day’s re­verse sin­gles in favour of Daria Gavrilova.

De­spite be­ing the most-pro­lific sin­gles win­ner in Aus­tralian Fed Cup his­tory, Sto­sur last won a sin­gles rub­ber on home soil in 2014.

“Look, ob­vi­ously a tough match,” said the one-time world No. 4 and US Open cham­pion on the come­back trail. “There were points of time where I was play­ing re­ally well and ex­e­cut­ing re­ally well and other times where it wasn’t quite work­ing for me.

“It’s ob­vi­ously not a sit­u­a­tion I’ve not ex­pe­ri­enced be­fore. I ob­vi­ously knew what the oc­ca­sion was and gave it ev­ery­thing I had but it wasn’t quite enough. I’ll bounce back.”